Dexter hits century mark against SHS

Lady Bearcats score first 16 points and coast to 82-point win

SIKESTON -- Just a season removed from celebrating the 100th year of Sikeston football, the Sikeston Lady Bulldogs basketball team associated themselves with a century mark of their own.

Only, it was the Dexter Lady Bearcats celebrating the feat.

Dexter's Abbie Warren puts up two of her 20 points Thursday night against Sikeston.

Dexter's Abbie Warren puts up two of her 20 points Thursday night against Sikeston.

In Thursday's varsity contest at the Sikeston Field House, the Lady Bearcats eclipsed the century mark for the first time in school history by dismantling the Lady Bulldogs 101-19.

"The girls definitely wanted it real bad," Dexter head coach Chad Allen said. "I thought about pulling it back but I knew they really wanted it and so I went ahead and let them score 100."

With the mercy clock constantly running in the fourth quarter, Asia Liggins was sent to the line with less than 1:20 seconds left to shoot two free throws. After making the first and missing the second Cathryn Heil, who finished with eight points and seven rebounds, came down with the rebound with around 25 seconds remaining. The Dexter crowd got on their feet and cheered as Heil sprinted down the floor and up the middle of the lane only to dish the ball off to her sister, Kaitlyn Heil, for the century mark breaker.

"The intensity started to pick up there towards the end," Allen said. "Everybody got into it and they actually went a lot harder. They were definitely pleased."

Dexter's big lead was established early in the first quarter as their full court pressure defense caused numerous steals and turnovers that led to easy buckets. Dexter held a 36-6 advantage after the first quarter and led 58-8 at half time.

The Lady Bearcats forced 38 turnovers throughout the game.

"We definitely came out with a lot of intensity," Allen said. "We worked on the full court match-up for the first time tonight and I thought the girls did extremely well in it. We got a lot of points off of turnovers and they came out with a lot of effort tonight."

Dexter controlled every facet of the game from rebounding (35-17), steals (31-6) and turnovers (11-39) as they went on to an 85-point victory.

"We didn't play very well at all," Sikeston head coach Homer Jackson said. "The score indicates that we didn't play well. As far as going back to what we need to do on the drawing board, there's fundamentals and there's mental preparation before you get to the fundamentals and I think that's where we are now.

"We're breaking down as a team. We're not looking for an excuse, we just didn't do what we needed to do."

Ashley Taylor led the Lady Bearcats with 28 points and also had six steals, five offensive rebounds and five assists. Katelyn Heil finished with 27 points, six rebounds, five steals and four assists. Abbie Warren completed a double-double effort in the win with 20 points and 10 rebounds. She also had seven steals.

Liggins led the Lady Bulldogs with seven points and four rebounds. Tyanne Townsend chipped in with six points.

"At the varsity level your expected to do certain things and we're not doing those things at the varsity level at this point," said Jackson. The future looks like we will be able to and part of this may be the growing pains."

Sikeston's (0-4) next game will be at the Twin Rivers Holiday Tournament on Dec. 27.

Dexter (7-0) will play again on Monday in an early game against Fredricktown at 2 p.m. at the T. S. Hill Middle School.

Junior varsity

The Dexter junior varsity had similar success to the varsity team, easily defeating Sikeston 66-6.